Linda F. Robertson Alumni Profile
Distinguished Service to EHHS Award
Former Director, Gerald H. Read Center for International and Intercultural Education
Linda F. Robertson’s capstone program at Kent State University’s Higher Education Administration with an emphasis on international education not only earned her a Ph.D., but provided a 20-year career at Kent State University’s Gerald H. Read Center for International and Intercultural Education (CIIE). After a 25-year career as a public school teacher and administrator, Robertson’s Kent State years connected her through the Fulbright and other programs with teachers and visiting professors from around the world. While in residence at Kent State, these educator ambassadors helped to build global understanding in the area schools and the Kent community. A founder of the Tigris Euphrates Initiative of Cooperation, a track two diplomacy project, CIIE was funded by various agencies like the UNESCO and the US Department of State for women’s, civic, and water-based development and training projects globally. Robertson’s leadership earned her recognition such as the 1985 Ohio Secondary Principal of the Year, and Kent State’s Daniel Mahony Award for Social Responsibility in 2016.
5 important bullet points:
- Attended a one room schoolhouse in elementary school in rural Wyoming.
- Taught in a Georgia school the first school year that faculty was integrated; and taught in a US Department of Defense elementary school in West Berlin in1969 when the Berlin Wall was still there.
- Served as Principal of Aurora High School when the school was recognized as a National Blue Ribbon School at the White House.
- Was the Principal Investigator of the US Department of State’s International Teacher Leadership Program (ILEP) in all 13 years of the programs existence, and the only principal investigator to be funded so consistently.
- Is the author of Bull Sh*t with Cream on It: A Leadership Memoir.